Brent Crude Hits New High On Soaring Demand

Brent crude hit a new high of over US$79 a barrel on data about higher demand in key markets such as China and OPEC’s bullish Monthly Oil Market Report, in which the cartel said the global overhang in oil inventories is all but gone. The pending U.S. sanctions against Iran have also contributed to the price rise. Data from China’s refineries showed that in April, these processed some 12.06 million barrels of crude daily, up 12 percent on the year and also the second-highest daily throughput rate on record, Reuters noted. OPEC, for its part, estimated that the excess oil inventories in the OECD had shrunk to just 9 million barrels. This compares with 340 million barrels when OPEC, Russia, and several other producers agreed to cut production to stimulate prices. OPEC’s success with the oil production cutting deal has been to a significant extent aided by Venezuela’s catastrophically […]